Jenifer Frank – Connecticut Health Investigative Teamhttp://c-hit.org
In-depth Journalism on Issues of Health and SafetyMon, 13 Aug 2018 14:17:30 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8As Lead In Children Persists, State Lawmakers Look To Tackle Riskshttp://c-hit.org/2018/03/15/as-lead-in-children-persists-state-lawmakers-look-to-tackle-risks/
http://c-hit.org/2018/03/15/as-lead-in-children-persists-state-lawmakers-look-to-tackle-risks/#commentsThu, 15 Mar 2018 13:02:17 +0000http://c-hit.org/?p=226348With Connecticut children testing positive for lead at consistently high numbers, and millions of dollars thrown at the problem with tepid results, lawmakers may finally be stepping up to seek an effective solution.

The Banking Committee is considering a bill that would create a task force to study better ways to finance the removal of the toxin from thousands of homes around the state. The task force would also investigate how to enforce abatement measures, including rental property inspections, and look into increasing workforce training in the specialized process needed to remove lead.

State Department of Public Health (DPH) numbers from 2015, the latest available, show more than 72,000 children under the age of 6 testing positive for some level of lead in their blood. More than 900 children were at levels two to four times the baseline at which a child is considered poisoned. Significant gaps in screening across the state mean those numbers could be even higher. The health disparities for lead poisoning among races and between Hispanic and non-Hispanic ethnicities remain, according to DPH.

Banking committee co-chairman and the bill’s author, Rep. Matthew L. Lesser, D-Middletown, said in an email, “My hope is that we can bring stakeholders together to identify financing models to help landlords and homeowners upgrade our existing housing units and tackle this health crisis systematically.”

Dr. Mark A. Mitchell, an environmental health physician and founder of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice, said in public hearing testimony on the bill that exposure to lead “causes damage to a child’s brain and nervous system, slowing growth and development.

In just the past five years, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has funneled nearly $40 million to Connecticut for lead abatement and related activities. That includes $12.6 million this year. Since 2003, the nonprofit Connecticut Children’s Healthy Homes Program, which is based at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford and focuses on 15 towns, has received more than $31 million in federal money to remediate more than 2,200 homes.

In addition to state agencies and Healthy Homes, money goes directly to municipalities. New Haven, for example, received more than $3 million in a multiyear grant in 2015. Bridgeport, the state’s largest city, however, has received nothing from Washington since its $2.5 million allocation ran out in October 2016, said the lead program’s director, Audrey Gaines, although it received $2.5 million in HUD’s latest round of funding and will restart lead abatement work May 1.

Lead-based paint was not outlawed until 1978. The National Center for Healthy Housing shows 61 percent of Connecticut housing, or tens of thousands of homes and housing units, was built before then.

Mitchell told the banking committee that in just the past few years, scientists have come to understand that much lower levels of lead than previously thought are harmful to children.

Helen Li, a fellow at Connecticut Legal Services in New Haven, said Connecticut is behind other states, and the science, in its legal trigger for official action. Health officials in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, for example, must investigate if a child’s blood test shows 5 micrograms per deciliter of lead or more. This corresponds with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s definition of lead poisoning.

Li noted that Connecticut law doesn’t require an investigation unless a blood test shows 20 micrograms of lead or more, or if two separate tests taken at least three months apart show 15 to 20 micrograms of the toxin.

Lead most frequently endangers young children, whose exposure risk coincides with their peak period of brain development.

Babies and toddlers are unstoppable movers and explorers. Through frequent hand-to-mouth activity, they may ingest lead through peeling lead paint chips, which taste sweet, and lead dust, created as doors and windows in older housing open and close over the years, grinding down the paint.

Its immediate impact can be subtle or even imperceptible, since the symptoms of lead poisoning are not uncommon: loss of appetite, fatigue, abdominal pain, constipation or diarrhea, irritability.

]]>http://c-hit.org/2018/03/15/as-lead-in-children-persists-state-lawmakers-look-to-tackle-risks/feed/3As State Steps Up Efforts To End Child Sex Trade, Public’s Ignorance Is Still An Impedimenthttp://c-hit.org/2017/11/14/as-state-steps-up-efforts-to-end-child-sex-trade-publics-ignorance-is-still-an-impediment/
http://c-hit.org/2017/11/14/as-state-steps-up-efforts-to-end-child-sex-trade-publics-ignorance-is-still-an-impediment/#commentsWed, 15 Nov 2017 03:02:32 +0000http://c-hit.org?p=184365In the weeks before Bridgeport police rescued the teenager from the motel, she’d been forced by her pimp to have two tattoos identifying her as belonging to him inked on her face and neck. She’d been given morphine and crack. And she’d been sold on the internet, she told police, “to over 50 or 60 dirty men.”

The girl, who was 17 when she was pulled from “the life” on Aug. 26, 2015, is one of more than 650 children and adolescents referred to the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) as victims of sex trafficking since 2008. Nearly one-third of those were referred last year alone, a result of the state’s ramping up its anti-exploitation efforts.

Derek Torrellas Photo.

The internet has changed predators’ access to youth, said Erin Williamson, of Love146, New Haven.

Prosecutions of sex traffickers are also up. Of the 38 since 2006, 10 have occurred since November 2015, when then Connecticut U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly formed the Human Trafficking Task Force. The group combines criminal justice officials and national, state and local law enforcement, collaborating with social service agencies, to focus on those who sexually exploit children for profit.

Of the 202 children referred to DCF last year, 75 were 15- and 16-year-olds, and 12 were 11 or 12. One was 10. The youngest trafficked child ever referred to the agency was 2, said Tammy Sneed, who leads its trafficking initiatives.

The proportion of white, African American and Hispanic children was roughly equal last year, although, at 37 percent, or 74, slightly more white children were referred to the department.

Although the victims were overwhelmingly girls, Sneed and others think the lower number of boys—17 boys and one transgender youth were referred to DCF in 2016—proves only that people are less likely to recognize males as targets of sex traffickers.

In fact, general incredulity that Connecticut children would ever be trafficked hurts efforts to eradicate it, advocates and others say, noting that many people still see the problem as confined to Third World countries and cultures.

“The bulk of our work is the domestic minors, and that’s what people don’t understand,” said Brian Sibley Sr., New Haven-based senior assistant state’s attorney and lead prosecutor with the trafficking task force.

He said there’s another thing people don’t understand: “When it’s minors, it’s not prostitution. It’s the systematic abuse and rape of kids.”

Ignorance And Denial

The misconceptions are compounded by most adults’ ignorance of social media, through which the trade is overwhelmingly conducted.

“The internet has completely changed predators’ access to youth, youths’ vulnerabilities and the hidden nature of the crime,” said Erin Williamson, U.S. survivor care program director of Love146, in New Haven. Love146 is an international nonprofit dedicated to ending child sex trafficking.

iStock Photo.

More than 650 children and adolescents have been referred to DCF since 2008.

Not only are victims advertised through websites—advocates say Backpage.com has replaced Craigslist in popularity and notoriety in this regard—but social media, from Facebook to otherwise innocuous messaging apps, gives traffickers access to anyone with a cellphone.

“We’ve seen kids from all over the state being victimized: single-parent families, two-parent families, urban, rural,” Sneed said. Many have been involved with DCF, she said, but more than 40 percent have not.

“Kids with prior experience with sexual abuse are at higher risk,” she said, “but kids in general, just being an adolescent puts these kids at risk.

Traffickers used to seek young victims at malls or near schools, in parks or fast food restaurants. But the stalking has moved online.

“What [parents] don’t realize is that the culture we used to live in is no longer the same,” said Latoya Lowery, a supervisor in DCF’s Norwalk office.

Online dating has been “normalized,” she said, noting that the parents of many children met online. Adolescents’ practice of sharing personal information with expanding groups of “friends,” at least some of whom they don’t actually know, makes them extraordinarily vulnerable.

“You have kids who don’t understand the other side of this world,” Lowery said.

“Predators are starting conversations with 10, 20, 40 kids all at once on the internet,” Williamson said. “They’re able to throw out all these reels and see who bites and then they work on that rod.

“I do this for a living and I struggle to keep up because apps are always changing,” she admitted. “You end up with parents, school officials and teachers, all sorts, who just say, ‘I’m totally overwhelmed. It’s a world I don’t understand.’”

Love146 has created a curriculum explaining traffickers’ tactics and helping youths learn to protect themselves, but only about a half-dozen Connecticut school districts have offered it, the organization said.

A related impediment to stopping traffickers is that their method of luring victims, termed “recruiting and grooming,” is often not seen for what it is. This involves an exploiter’s playing to a victim’s needs and convincing her that he cares for her.

Jillian Gilchrest, head of the state Trafficking in Persons Council and a director at the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, noted the similar dynamics of domestic violence and trafficking.

“A trafficker will actually position himself as a boyfriend to his victims, and/or abuse his victim or isolate his victim,” Gilchrest said.

“That commitment or bond with the trafficker … is very, very common,” DCF’s Sneed said. “When we do training, we talk about trauma bonds or Stockholm syndrome.”

After being rescued, survivors often have long-lasting and complex health challenges, Williamson said. A girl may need to be administered a rape kit, tested for pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Victims may have been using drugs or alcohol to cope with their trauma, or substance abuse may have predated victimization, she said.

Post-trauma psychological issues may be even more complicated. “A number have histories of mental health issues, some diagnosed, some not. PTSD is real for some of our youth,” said Williamson.

Challenges

Although Connecticut passed a sex trafficking law in 2006, the first state convictions didn’t occur until the legislature tightened the law in 2016. In their 2017 session, lawmakers created the new crime of commercial sexual abuse of a minor and made it a class A or B felony. A convicted trafficker could get as much as 20 or 25 years, depending on the victim’s age.

Jenifer Frank Photo.

Latoya Lowery said that children who share information online are extremely vulnerable to predators.

Between stiffer state laws and the formation of the Human Trafficking Task Force, said Sibley, the senior assistant state’s attorney, state and federal officials are working together more effectively to coordinate cases and maximize penalties.

In August, Brandon Williams of Bridgeport, the sex trafficker who tattooed his 17-year-old victim, was sentenced to more than six years in federal prison, followed by four years of supervised release. The Bridgeport Police Department, FBI and the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had worked together on the investigation.

In addition to Williams, two other child traffickers have been sentenced so far in 2017. Two others are to be sentenced shortly, another is slated for trial, and another, an East Hartford man, has been indicted.

In 2016, Connecticut became the first state to require hotels to train employees so they can recognize trafficking on the premises and to require them to post signage about trafficking. Since then, the list of establishments that must post signs has been expanded to include massage parlors, emergency facilities and other public places.

A map of sex trafficking arrests in Connecticut during the past 10 years would show them occurring frequently at lodging establishments on highways near larger cities, but also along Route 15 and all the interstates.

FBI Special Agent Wendy Bowersox said, “95 is definitely one of our hotspots,” from the New York line to the casinos.

Advocates and law enforcement all say that even communities considered middle class have trafficking.

Listing establishments off I-95 at exits 35, 36, 39 and 40, Officer Michael DeVito of the Milford Police Department said, “We have a dozen hotels in close proximity. It’s very safe to say that [trafficking arrests] very likely and consistently occur once a month.”

Tips On Reporting, Spotting Trafficking

To report a child being victimized in Connecticut, call the Careline at 1-800-842-2288.

Trafficking victims can text “BEFREE” (233733) for an immediate response and help from the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.

]]>http://c-hit.org/2017/11/14/as-state-steps-up-efforts-to-end-child-sex-trade-publics-ignorance-is-still-an-impediment/feed/1DCF’s New Strategy: Treating Children And Families In Their Own Homeshttp://c-hit.org/2017/06/21/dcfs-new-strategy-treating-children-and-families-in-their-own-homes/
http://c-hit.org/2017/06/21/dcfs-new-strategy-treating-children-and-families-in-their-own-homes/#commentsThu, 22 Jun 2017 01:51:23 +0000http://c-hit.org?p=140134Last May, Samantha Collins’ drug use, legal problems and dealings with the Connecticut Department of Children and Families forced her to strike a bargain with the agency.

Tony Bacewicz Photo.

Samantha Collins tells how the Family-Based Recovery program helped her stay at home to care for her children while receiving addiction treatment. Looking on is Chelsea Gouldsbrough, a support specialist.

In return for allowing social workers to come into her home three times a week to help her stay off drugs, improve her parenting and learn the practical skills needed to function as an adult, DCF would not remove her children.

The 26-year-old Somers mother of 2- and 7-year-old boys entered Family-Based Recovery, a program created 10 years ago by DCF, the agency better known, perhaps, for separating families than working to keep them together.

Family-Based Recovery, or FBR, is an example of DCF’s dramatic reversal in philosophy and practices, after years of a policy approach based largely on removing children thought to be at risk and placing them in congregate care facilities.

“‘Pull and ask later,’” said Kristina Stevens, a former DCF social worker who is now administrator of the agency’s Clinical and Community Consultation and Support Division, which includes a fast-growing array of in-home treatment programs.

As recently as 2011, nearly 1,500 children and youths were separated from their families and were living in 54 group homes and other treatment centers in and out of Connecticut. Another 2,300 children and families were served in a dozen intensive in-home treatment programs.

Today, about 5,000 children and families receive mental health, substance abuse and other clinical care through DCF programs—a 24 percent increase since 2011—although most of those programs are part-time and not residential.

In 2016, social workers, clinicians and other mental health professionals from a dozen DCF programs —at a cost of about $26 million—provided in-home treatment. Just 500 children now live in congregate care or residential care, Stevens said –a 66 percent reduction since 2011. As of May, just three lived out of state.

The shift to in-home care—part of a national movement—has not been without controversy, as some critics say it can be driven by cost-savings, rather than a need for more extensive and sometimes necessary residential care.

Counselors in one in-home treatment program—IICAPS (Intensive In-Home Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services)—for example, worked with 2,259 families in 2016, helping children with serious mental health challenges. Child First went to the homes of 547 children who live in environments marked by violence, neglect, mental illness or other stress-inducing conditions. Another program provided in-home clinical intervention for 80 adolescents with problem sexual behaviors and their families.

Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, said Connecticut is “miles ahead of most states” in understanding the importance of home-based treatments. He was adamant that even if a parent is a substance abuser, “Separating a child from his mother is more toxic than cocaine” in how it harms the child.

“There was a belief that by virtue of going into [congregate] care, a level of intensive treatment came with it. That wasn’t always the case,” Stevens said. “So when you meet a family benefiting from a family-based recovery experience, they’re actually seeing their treatment providers more than a youth who would have been in a congregate setting.”

Samantha Collins gives FBR five stars.

Family-Based Recovery—created after seven months of brainstorming and planning in 2006 by DCF, the Yale Child Study Center and Johns Hopkins University—may be the poster child for the department’s about-face.

DCF had sought help, knowing that children under age 3 experience the highest rates of abuse or neglect, and that alcohol or drugs play a role in half the foster care placements in this age group.

“DCF said, ‘Let’s create our own model’,” said Karen Hanson, assistant clinical professor of social work in the Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine. Researchers and DCF melded programs that addressed both substance abuse recovery and ways to foster healthy child development.

Drug treatment programs generally focus just on substance abuse, Hanson said, while parenting programs don’t factor in substance abuse. Parents with both challenges can founder, with one problem exacerbating the other.

FBR’s tenet is that taking a baby from a substance-abusing parent not only damages the child, but also can remove a parent’s motivation to become sober.

“The pleasure of bonding with a baby and the satisfaction of providing competent care can reinforce abstinence,” Hanson wrote in a 2015 article. “There are times that removal has to happen. But if you take away that child, the parent can think, ‘There’s no reason I shouldn’t use.’”

Since 2007, 1,850 families, most headed by single mothers, have participated in FBR. The program costs the state $3.7 million a year, which covers Yale’s oversight, training and data analysis for contracts with six social service agencies around the state. Each agency sends teams of three—two clinicians and a family-support specialist—to work with families.

FBR targets parents at a vulnerable point: They must have abused drugs or alcohol within 30 days of starting the program. This is one reason why, from the onset, a safety plan is developed, dictating what steps a parent will take to protect her children if she uses. Program incentives include earning $10 vouchers for each clean drug test and participating in weekly group sessions with other FBR parents.

DCF and Yale’s measures show that parents’ levels of depression decrease the longer they are in FBR, and that the decline in substance use is more significant than for all other substance abuse treatment programs.

The crucial measure: When the family is discharged, 85 percent of the children were still living with their parent.

The results are promising enough that DCF will add 500 more families, with a child between 3 and 6, during the next four years. Money from a private-public partnership will cover the expansion, to be repaid by the state only if the program succeeds.

Findings from DCF’s wide range of in-home treatment programs, as presented on its online report cards, show that more than 70 percent of children and families served in the past three years met treatment goals.

Tony Bacewicz Photo.

Samantha’s young son reaches for a toy in a playroom in the Manchester office of The Village for Families and Children.

State Child Advocate Sarah Eagan, often a critic of DCF, said of Family-Based Recovery: “Certainly, the model seems like a good idea. There is such a need for reliable, intensive interventions and supports for caregivers with substance abuse treatment needs.”

She dropped out of high school and became pregnant at 19, starting to abuse opiates after her first son, Jacob, was born. Her life got more complicated after Jayden was born, she said, and she started taking cocaine.

The family came to DCF’s attention when Jacob, a first-grader, refused to go to school. “It was just easier for me to let him be truant,” Collins said.

When she was arrested for shoplifting, Collins said, she “got lucky.” The judge didn’t order jail time. She got Family-Based Recovery.

During her time in the program, which included three relapses, Jacob returned to school and Jayden was enrolled in B23, the state’s program for young children with developmental delays. “I learned how to work with him,” Collins said.

She also learned about community resources available to help the family, how to budget and, with her caseworker’s help, found an affordable apartment so she and her sons could move out of her parents’ home.

She said getting her GED is next.

]]>http://c-hit.org/2017/06/21/dcfs-new-strategy-treating-children-and-families-in-their-own-homes/feed/4Number Of Lead-Poisoned Children Drops, But More Showed Higher Levelshttp://c-hit.org/2017/05/09/number-of-lead-poisoned-children-drops-but-more-showed-higher-levels/
http://c-hit.org/2017/05/09/number-of-lead-poisoned-children-drops-but-more-showed-higher-levels/#respondTue, 09 May 2017 12:46:31 +0000http://c-hit.org?p=128483Nearly 1,400 new cases of lead-poisoned children under age 6 were reported in Connecticut in 2015, a slight drop from the year before, but more children showed higher levels of poisoning.

A child whose blood test shows 5 micrograms of lead per deciliter or higher is considered poisoned. The 2015 numbers show 98 new cases of children with lead levels of 20 micrograms or higher, four times the threshold number and a 32 percent jump from 2014.

“We cannot, with any certainty, explain why this is the case,” said Krista M. Veneziano, coordinator of the Connecticut Department of Public Health’s (DPH’s) Lead, Radon, and Healthy Homes Program, about the disproportionately larger numbers of higher toxicity.

Exposure to lead can damage cognitive ability, including a measurable and irreversible loss in IQ points. It can also be linked to speech and developmental delays, hyperactivity, hearing loss and behavioral problems, though these may not show up until years later.

Babies and toddlers are the most likely victims of lead paint poisoning and are especially vulnerable to its effects during these vital developmental years. With their hand-to-mouth exploring, they are more liable to ingest flaking paint chips, which taste sweet, or leaded paint dust, created by doors and windows in older housing opening and shutting, grinding down the paint. Soil near the base of older, dilapidated buildings is also frequently contaminated.

These numbers from the DPH are just an estimate because of under-testing. Although state law requires all children to be tested twice, a year apart, before they turn 3, only 55 percent of 1- and 2-year-olds had both screenings in 2015.

Connecticut is not alone in deficient screening and, in fact, does better than many states. A national study of 1- to 5-year-olds published May 2 in “Pediatrics,” an American Academy of Pediatrics journal, concluded that “undertesting of blood lead levels by pediatric care providers appears to be endemic in many states.”

The state started testing children for lead poisoning in 2002. In more recent years, as knowledge of the continuing impact of the neurotoxin and of the importance of testing have widened, children with elevated blood lead levels have been reported in nearly every town and city.

But the highest numbers of poisoned children are always in the four largest, poorer and minority-dominant cities—Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford and Waterbury. Hence, black children under 6 were twice as likely to be lead poisoned as white or Asian children in 2015, and Hispanic children were 1.6­­ times as likely to be poisoned as non-Hispanic children.

More than 75,000 children under 6 were screened in 2015, with New Haven reporting 196 new cases of children with lead levels at or greater than 5 micrograms. Waterbury reported 186 cases; Bridgeport, 179; and Hartford, 113.

Combined, children in these cities comprise close to half of all the new cases of poisonings in 2015.

Dr. Patricia Garcia, co-director of the Regional Lead Treatment Clinic at Connecticut Children’s Primary Care Center in Hartford, said the clinic’s current caseload is 179 children, who generally come from the from the top half of the state. Lead patients from Fairfield and New Haven counties are more likely to seek treatment at the lead clinic at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital.

And although there are a fair number of children from the city, Garcia said, “If you live in Connecticut, you are at risk for lead.

“Our housing stock is old, we’re from New England, it’s part of our heritage. … [This] means every child is at risk, and it doesn’t matter what socioeconomic class you come from.”

Since 2014, when Flint, Mich., changed its water source and poisoned thousands of its residents, awareness has grown nationwide that lead remains an unresolved problem.

Connecticut’s lead problems, as in most New England states, are linked more to lead paint, which wasn’t banned nationally until 1978. Nearly 60 percent of the state’s housing stock was built before 1970, and percentages in the cities can be higher.

More than 75 percent of New Haven, Bridgeport and Hartford’s housing stock is pre-1960, with the three cities generally swapping positions at the top of the state’s lead-plagued municipalities.

DPH numbers show that among 135 dwelling units investigated and reported in 2015, 84 percent had lead-based paint hazards, 59 percent had a lead dust hazard, and 34 percent showed lead in the surrounding soil.

The lead numbers will be fleshed out when the DPH issues its full 2015 lead surveillance report in the next few months.

The total number of Connecticut children 6 and under with lead poisoning in 2015 was 2,156, which includes children still being treated from previous years. This is about 130 fewer than in 2014.

]]>http://c-hit.org/2017/05/09/number-of-lead-poisoned-children-drops-but-more-showed-higher-levels/feed/0TB Cases Rise In Connecticut, Nationally First Increase In 23 Yearshttp://c-hit.org/2016/11/16/tb-cases-rise-in-connecticut-nationally-first-increase-in-23-years/
http://c-hit.org/2016/11/16/tb-cases-rise-in-connecticut-nationally-first-increase-in-23-years/#commentsThu, 17 Nov 2016 03:21:58 +0000http://c-hit.org?p=79991Reported cases of tuberculosis jumped 17 percent in Connecticut from 2014 to 2015, mirroring a national and global trend and prompting federal officials to ask primary care providers to be on the alert for at-risk patients.

The state Department of Public Health (DPH) said 70 people, in 29 towns, were reported with active TB, the contagious form of the disease, in 2015, compared with 60 the year before. About 80 percent of Connecticut patients were foreign-born, many from Asian countries.

Nationally, TB cases totaled 9,563 last year, an increase of 157 over 2014. It was the first jump in cases after more than two decades of annual declines, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported. New England had one of the largest regional upswings, federal figures show, with 330 reported cases, a 7.5 percent increase.

Connecticut and national health officials are unclear on what’s behind the uptick and said more studies are needed. Drug-resistant strains have become a challenge, but that’s largely a problem overseas at this point, they said. About two-thirds of the cases nationally in 2015 were foreign born, the CDC said.

Dr. Lynn Sosa, deputy chief epidemiologist at the DPH and head of its tuberculosis control program, said that most of the foreign-born residents had been in Connecticut for years, indicating they may have had the latent form of the disease. “Most did not get here last year,” she said.

Sosa was quick to say that she wants to see 2016’s numbers before considering this a trend, rather than a one-year spike. “Are we at a place we haven’t seen before? I don’t know,” she said.

Dr. James Mazo, medical director for occupational health at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, said tuberculosis is “a disease we tend to think is pretty much nonexistent. But it’s still out there.”

Yale New Haven Hospital consistently treats five to 15 patients a year with active TB, said Dr. Richard A. Martinello, medical director of infection prevention. Officials of other Connecticut hospitals say they treat roughly similar numbers.

For many years, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the U.S. Spread by airborne bacteria; it most often strikes the lungs, but can affect any part of the body.

Although its numbers have been cut dramatically since the mid-20th century with the advent of multidrug therapies, TB resurged with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which offered a new supply of hosts with weakened immune systems.

Most TB patients in the U.S. were born in Mexico, the Philippines, India, Vietnam and China. In Connecticut, the three countries of origin with five or more cases in 2015 were India, the Philippines and Ecuador, the DPH said.

The Stamford Advocate reported in February that 31 people were tested after coming into contact with someone with active TB in the city’s Westhill High School community. Dr. Henry Yoon, medical adviser for the Stamford health department, said he was unaware of anyone who was tested contracting the disease.

Dr. Michael Parry, an infectious disease specialist with Stamford Hospital, said many of the eight to 10 patients a year the hospital sees come from Central America and the Caribbean, as well as India. The patients are “infected during childhood, they immigrate here, and during adulthood, the TB reactivates,” he said. “It has smoldered and then escapes [the] immune system’s control.”

He compared latent tuberculosis to shingles, a far more common condition, which is caused by the reactivation of the virus that causes chickenpox.

Symptoms typical of active tuberculosis include a persistent cough, fever, chills and unintentional weight loss. People with latent TB – the World Health Organization and CDC estimate this group as a third of the world’s population – show no symptoms of the disease, and they are not contagious.

Since the uptick was announced, the CDC has ramped up prevention efforts, targeting people with a high risk of latent infection — about 13 million people, or about 4 percent of the U.S. population. Without treatment, one in 10 of them will develop active tuberculosis, the agency said.

In addition to people from countries with a high prevalence of the disease – comprising much of the developing world – HIV patients or others with weakened immune systems are considered high risk, as are people who live or have lived in certain congregate settings, such as homeless shelters and long-term care facilities.

For the first time, the CDC says the public health system is no longer the only crucial player in prevention.

“[W]e need help from [primary care providers] to encourage at-risk patients to get tested, and if needed, start and complete treatment,” Dr. Philip LoBue, director of the CDC’s Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, said in a September statement.

Health experts say it’s easier and much less expensive to treat latent TB than full-blown tuberculosis. Treating active TB can take six to nine months — if there are no complications — and it’s extremely labor-intensive, requiring medical personnel to watch patients take each dose of medicine.

In addition to “deputizing” primary care providers and emphasizing treatment of latent infections, the CDC is also updating its 10-year-old guidelines on preventing transmission to health care workers who treat TB or HIV.

Two hospitals in Connecticut have reported testing large groups of employees recently after they may have been exposed to contagious patients, according to the 2016 UConn Health Center report on occupational diseases for the state Workers’ Compensation Commission.

About 80 workers at William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich, in both 2013 and 2014, had to be tested, said Tim Morse, professor emeritus at the health center and the report’s coauthor.

In 2014, St. Francis Hospital tested about 250 employees who may have been exposed to two patients with TB.

None of the hospitals’ employees contracted either an active or latent infection, doctors with each institution said.

Mazo, St. Francis’ medical director for occupational health, said that in the 2014 incident, “Unfortunately, it was three to four days before [the two patients] could be diagnosed, and [they] had gone to multiple departments…We then backtracked and notified colleagues” who may have had contact, he said.

Dr. Jack Ross, chief of infectious disease at Hartford HealthCare, said, “It’s important to remember that TB presents with a myriad of nonspecific symptoms.

“Depending on location, potential TB exposures occur yearly in many hospitals,” Ross said. “This is despite the most rigorous screening and attempts to predict which patients pose a risk.”

Tuberculosis is one of humanity’s oldest killers — traces have been found in the bones and tissues of Egyptian mummies — and it remains one of the world’s most deadly infectious diseases.

]]>http://c-hit.org/2016/11/16/tb-cases-rise-in-connecticut-nationally-first-increase-in-23-years/feed/1Nearly 1,500 New Cases Of Lead-Poisoned Kids, Screening Remains Deficienthttp://c-hit.org/2016/09/12/nearly-1500-new-cases-of-lead-poisoned-children-screening-remains-deficient/
http://c-hit.org/2016/09/12/nearly-1500-new-cases-of-lead-poisoned-children-screening-remains-deficient/#respondMon, 12 Sep 2016 23:02:52 +0000http://c-hit.org?p=66792Nearly 1,500 children under the age of 6 tested positive for lead poisoning in 2014, according to the latest numbers from the state Department of Public Health.

Overall, the number of lead-poisoned children in Connecticut was about the same in 2014 as in 2013, with the total rising by 9 children. In 2014, 2,284 children under 6 were diagnosed as lead-poisoned, compared with 2,275 in 2013.

The numbers are roughly equal because some children diagnosed with lead poisoning are cleared after being treated for it, they turn 6 and so are no longer followed by the state, or their families leave the state.

But at a combined hearing of the legislature’s Committees on Children and Public Health on Monday, a state Department of Public Health official conceded that those numbers and other state lead statistics may be misleading because of the deficiencies of lead screening in Connecticut.

Krista M. Veneziano, program coordinator for the DPH Lead, Radon, and Health Homes Program, told committee members that just 53 percent of children age 3 and under received the two screenings, a year apart, as required by state law.

She said the department has been taking steps, such as a summer webinar, to get the message across to pediatricians and regional lead clinics that every child must receive two blood lead level screenings before turning 3. Children older than 3 and younger than 6 who move to Connecticut also must be screened.

C-HIT reported in May that nearly 60,000 CT children were exposed to lead and 2,275 were lead-poisoned, but that the numbers were likely much higher because of significant gaps in state-mandated testing. In that report, based on 2013 data, a DPH spokesperson said that the agency was “working on increasing our outreach efforts in order to bolster” test numbers.

Unlike in Flint, Mich., whose residents were poisoned after a change in the city’s water source, most lead poisoning cases in Connecticut are linked to its housing stock, nearly one-quarter of which was built before World War II, when lead-based paint was commonly used. But lead-based paint was not outlawed nationally until 1978, which makes homes and apartment buildings built before then potentially hazardous.

Babies and young children are the most likely victims of lead poisoning, their risk of exposure occurring at the same time as their peak period of brain development.

As every parent knows, healthy babies and toddlers learn and explore through frequent hand-to-mouth activity. They can easily ingest the toxin through peeling lead paint chips, which taste sweet, and lead dust, which forms as doors and windows in older housing open and close, grinding down the paint.

Lead exposure can cause cognitive problems, including a measurable loss in IQ points – and speech and developmental delays, as well as hearing, behavioral issues and hyperactivity.

At Monday’s hearing, Tracy Hung, a DPH epidemiologist, said she is studying the link between lead poisoning in children and the money the state spends on special education and in handling children with behavioral issues.

Without screening, it may be hard to know if a child has been exposed to lead because its symptoms can be imperceptible and they are not uncommon: loss of appetite, fatigue, abdominal pain, constipation or diarrhea, irritability.

According to the DPH 2014 figures, of the 1,473 children who had newly confirmed toxic lead levels in 2014, more than one-third – 566 – lived in one of the state’s three largest, and poorest, cities: Bridgeport, New Haven or Hartford. The total number of children exposed to lead in 2014 was not immediately available.

]]>http://c-hit.org/2016/09/12/nearly-1500-new-cases-of-lead-poisoned-children-screening-remains-deficient/feed/0DeLauro, Esty Announce Bill To Help Protect Children From Lead Painthttp://c-hit.org/2016/05/16/delauro-esty-announce-bill-to-help-protect-children-from-lead-paint/
http://c-hit.org/2016/05/16/delauro-esty-announce-bill-to-help-protect-children-from-lead-paint/#commentsMon, 16 May 2016 15:13:53 +0000http://c-hit.org?p=40932Noting that 60,000 Connecticut children have been exposed to the toxin lead – and that more than 2,000 have levels high enough that they are lead-poisoned — U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Elizabeth Esty unveiled a bill Monday to help homeowners make their homes safer and better protect children.

“We cannot kick the can down the road and hope the problem goes away. It will not,” DeLauro, a Democrat who represents the 3rd Congressional District, said at a press conference at the New Haven Health Department.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro

In a May 7 story, C-HIT reported that figures from the state Department of Public Health show that tens of thousands of children are being regularly exposed to lead paint and lead dust – and that tens of thousands of children are not being properly tested for exposure to the toxin.

Damage caused by lead, which can include cognitive, hearing and neurological deficits, among others, is irreversible.

The congresswomen’s legislation — the Healthy Homes Tax Credit Act — would give a $5,000 tax credit to homeowners for lead paint and dust abatement, as well as for asbestos and radon, and remove lead-lined plumbing. The bill is a companion to one introduced earlier this year by U. S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

DeLauro and Esty, the latter who represents the 5th Congressional District, pointed out Monday that hundreds of thousands of homes across the state were built before the federal government banned lead paint in 1978.

The walls and ceilings of older homes were often just painted over, which doesn’t prevent the undercover of toxic paint from eventually chipping off and falling onto the floor; even more dangerous is lead-paint dust, created when windows and doors are opened and shut over the years, grinding down the paint to dust, which can be easily ingested or absorbed by crawling babies and toddlers.

Because of the age of the state’s housing stock, the federal government considers Connecticut to have one of the highest lead-poisoning risks in the country.

Although children who live in older, poorer urban areas are most at risk for lead poisoning, DPH numbers show that children have been exposed in West Hartford, East Hartford, New Britain, Stratford, Hamden, Middletown, and many other communities statewide.

The crisis in Flint, Mich., has shone a light on lead-poisoning linked to water, DeLauro said.

DeLauro added, “No community should ever endure what Flint has endured. Every single person in this country deserves to come home to a place where they feel secure, where they do not worry about their health being at risk, where they do not feel afraid.”

]]>http://c-hit.org/2016/05/16/delauro-esty-announce-bill-to-help-protect-children-from-lead-paint/feed/1Thousands Of Children Suffer From Lead Poisoning, Many Not Testedhttp://c-hit.org/2016/05/07/thousands-of-children-suffer-from-lead-poisoning-many-not-tested/
http://c-hit.org/2016/05/07/thousands-of-children-suffer-from-lead-poisoning-many-not-tested/#commentsSun, 08 May 2016 01:53:42 +0000http://c-hit.org?p=38191Nearly 60,000 Connecticut children under age 6 were reported with lead exposure in 2013, and an additional 2,275 children had high enough levels of the toxin in their blood to be considered poisoned.

While those numbers, the latest available from the state Department of Public Health, may seem high, health experts say they actually must be higher because of significant gaps in state-mandated testing.

Tony Bacewicz Photo.

Three-year-old Angely Nunez watches as Lauren Frazer, a nurse at Connecticut Children’s Primary Care Center in Hartford, applies a topical anesthetic to her arm before a blood draw to check for lead levels.

Even though Connecticut has some of the strictest lead-screening laws in the country – requiring every child to be tested twice, before age 3 – DPH figures show that only half were screened twice, as mandated.

Unlike in Flint, Mich., whose residents were poisoned when a corrosive water source was directed through aging lead-lined pipes, the main culprit in Connecticut is lead paint. Though banned in 1978, lead-based paint is present in countless older apartment buildings and homes, especially in urban centers, such as Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport.

Connecticut’s “Requirements and Guidance for Childhood Lead Screening” set stringent rules on testing. State law says labs have 48 hours to inform the state and local health departments when they have a report of someone whose lead count is above a certain level.

Most pediatricians are doing the screenings, said Dr. Lisa Menillo, who created and directed the regional lead treatment center at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford before it was closed in 2014.

But Menillo said that they are not doing it correctly. “They’re not doing it at the right ages, and they’re not doing it as often as they should.”

DPH numbers show that about 30 percent (more than 22,000) of children between 9 months and 2 years old did not have a blood lead test in 2013. And about half of all 3-year-olds that year who had been tested once when younger never had a second test.

Screening “is a hard sell, sometimes,” said Lisa Honigfeld, vice president at the Farmington-based Child Health and Development Institute, which is under the nonprofit Children’s Fund of Connecticut.

She posits that because Connecticut’s screening laws are stricter than the federal government’s, some pediatricians may not take the state laws seriously. This has spurred the institute to recently launch a training program to educate doctors on the medical imperative of following state lead laws.

And a spokeswoman for DPH says the agency “is currently working on increasing our outreach efforts in order to bolster second test numbers.”

Menillo said some of the problem also may be a perception among pediatricians that lead exposure “is just an inner-city problem.”

That’s not the case, she said.

High Risks for Kids

Young children are lead’s likeliest, and most vulnerable, victims. Their risk of exposure coincides with their peak period of brain development.

Healthy babies and toddlers are driven to move and explore. Through frequent hand-to-mouth activity, they may ingest the toxin through peeling lead paint chips, which taste sweet, and lead dust, created as doors and windows in older housing open and close over the years, grinding down the paint.

“Kids who are younger absorb lead at [many] times the rate adults will absorb it,” said Dr. Hilda Slivka, director of the Regional Lead Treatment Clinic at Connecticut Children’s Primary Care Center in Hartford.

Lead exposure can cause cognitive deficits – a loss in IQ points – and speech and developmental delays, as well as hearing, behavioral issues and hyperactivity.

Tony Bacewicz Photo.

KJ is held by his mom – Latasha Mewson of Waterbury – as his blood is drawn.

But its immediate impact can be subtle or even imperceptible, since its symptoms are not uncommon: loss of appetite, fatigue, abdominal pain, constipation or diarrhea, irritability.

Because its effects can be irreversible, lead exposure has long-term societal impacts, such as the millions of dollars spent on special education programs annually, experts say.

In both studies, CEHI said that the “stark difference between blood lead levels by race” – especially between white and black fourth-graders – was mirrored in the wide disparity in CMT scores in both reading and math.

Both studies conclude that “exposure to lead may account for part of the achievement gap among Connecticut schoolchildren.”

Lead’s Dangers

Since 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Connecticut health officials have defined lead poisoning as a blood lead level of greater than or equal to 5 micrograms per deciliter — although experts agree there is no such thing as a safe level.

Once it enters the bloodstream, lead can affect the nervous system and nearly every other system in the body. Scientists say high levels can cause anemia, kidney damage, muscle weakness, brain damage and death.

And study after study shows that “levels as low as 5 [micrograms per deciliter] … affect IQ, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement.”

Without a blood test, pinpointing the cause of a child’s illness or condition can be difficult, in part because the toxin can affect children differently.

“There isn’t necessarily one area of the brain that’s always affected,” said Slivka, of Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC).

Lead exposure “can cause hyperactivity, it can cause some decreased ability in speech, it can cause decreased hearing as well as just [decreased] cognitive functioning,” Slivka said.

Slivka runs a Tuesday morning lead clinic at CCMC’s Primary Care Center. The clinic gets one or two new patients every week, she said, and “a lot more” in the summer.

Her current caseload is about 65 children, from Hartford, Manchester, Meriden, New Britain, Waterbury and elsewhere.

It includes 3-year-old Angely Nunez of Hartford.

On a recent Tuesday, Angely’s mother explained that when a fire forced the family to relocate quickly, they took an apartment on Buckingham Street, a stone’s throw from the state Capitol.

Tony Bacewicz Photo.

Dr. Hilda Slivka examines Angely Nunez, 3.

At the little girl’s physical last June, her parents learned that Angely’s blood lead level was 14 micrograms per deciliter, nearly three times the 5-microgram level that the DPH defines as poisoning in a child. Her parents realized, her mother said, that Angely had been acting “antsy, really anxious, and would just start screaming.”

When staff at the federally funded Healthy Homes Program, based at CCMC, inspected the apartment in the fall, they advised the family to move.

Angely and her parents now live on Park Street, but the little girl is still being seen at the clinic. Slivka said Angely has a speech delay as a result of the lead in her system.

Waterbury resident Latasha Mewson had a more alarming experience with her son.

When Mewson tried to enroll 3-year-old KJ into a new day care center last year, she was told they could not accept him because a blood test had shown his lead level at 47 mcg/dl.

Mewson said she’d noticed a change in KJ’s behavior in the eight months since they’d moved into their Section 8 apartment, which had holes in the walls, peeling paint and decrepit windows, all of which the landlord had refused to fix. The boy had become “very hyperactive,” she said, which was “very new.”

When, as required, the boy’s lead level was reported to the DPH and the city, the city inspected and put the family up in a hotel for three weeks, before placing them at their current address several blocks away. KJ is still being treated at CCMC.

Slivka said it can take several years of chelation therapy – in which a substance to remove heavy metals is injected into the child’s body – to lower lead levels.

In the two decades since Connecticut started screening, the three largest cities generally report the highest number of lead-exposed children under 6. DPH’s 2013 report shows:

• Bridgeport — 5,754 children with a blood lead level of 4 micrograms or lower, and 402 at 5 mcg or higher;

•New Haven — 4,114 children with a BLL of 4 mcg or lower, and 405 at 5 mcg or higher;

• Waterbury had 4,152 children with a level of 4 mcg or lower, and 229 at 5 mcg or higher.

• Hartford — 4,426 children with a BLL of 4 mcg or lower, and 161 at 5 mcg or higher.

Although Hartford still has high numbers, Arlene Robertson, who has headed the city’s lead program since 1998, noted that the city is now No. 4 (behind Waterbury).

“We have accomplished a lot,” she said, through education, in the form of literature and speaking to community groups, and by better screening.

Extraordinary Housing Challenges

Nearly 75 percent of Connecticut’s housing was built before 1980, compared to 57 percent nationally, according to the National Center for Healthy Housing. This, and the fact that the housing is often in poor cities, makes the state one of the top 10 nationally in terms of lead poisoning risk, according to a 2012 DPH report.

Removing lead paint, or lessening the risk of exposure, takes special training or its dangers can be increased.

Since 1999, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has funneled more than $116 million to the state government and to cities and nonprofits for lead abatement and related activities.

Since 2003, the nonprofit Healthy Homes Program, based at CCMC, has received $31 million from HUD to help property owners in 15 cities, where 62,000 children enrolled in Medicaid live, remove or minimize lead paint.

Of Bridgeport’s 58,500 housing units, more than 75 percent were built before 1978, when lead paint was outlawed. In 10 years, after four consecutive HUD grants, the city has remediated “almost 1,000 units,” said Sabine Kuczo, until recently the manager of Bridgeport Lead Free Families. Bridgeport’s most recent allocation, for $2.3 million, is aimed at making an additional 110 housing units lead free.

Of New Haven’s 57,500 housing units, 83 percent are pre-1978, according to environmental health director Paul Kowalski. New Haven has remediated about 1,250 housing units.

Which leaves, between the state’s two largest cities, more than 100,000 housing units to remediate.

A new policy brief by the Child Health and Development Institute says the best way to fight numbers like these is to “require action in a child’s earliest years — from birth to 2.” The numbers also indicate that 25 percent of all white kindergartners are overweight or obese also.

“The numbers are staggering, and the health implications are so big,” said Judith Meyers, president and CEO of the Farmington-based CHDI, whose brief is based, in part, on research by UConn’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity.

“Connecticut’s rates [of childhood obesity] are among the highest in the country,” she said.

Stock Photo.

One of every three kindergartners is overweight or obese, a CHDI study reports.

Other recent studies show that the state is among the bottom in terms of enacting effective policies on preventing childhood obesity.

Meyers noted that according to pediatricians, once children as young as 2 start developing fat cells, it’s very hard to turn that around as the children grow, which is why prevention is key.

Being overweight or obese during childhood often leads to obesity during adulthood, says CHDI, and this can cause a host of serious illnesses, including heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and asthma. Despite high-profile efforts, such as Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move, obesity remains a major public health issue, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Two efforts to confront this epidemic are underway in Connecticut, including a legislative bill, voted out of the Committee on Children, that would impose dietary restrictions and minimum physical activity requirements on child care centers, preschools and elementary schools. Connecticut currently has recommendations in these areas, not mandates.

The second step is today’s release by the CHDI of five recommendations aimed at preventing childhood obesity:

• Increase support of breast-feeding in hospitals, day care centers and group child-care homes, including to stop the practice of providing infant formula in hospital gift bags to new mothers;

• Require day care centers to serve only breast milk or infant formula to children under 11 months, and to serve breast milk, unflavored whole milk, water and no more than 4 ounces of 100% fruit juice a day to children 12 months to 2 years old;

• Help child-care centers follow federal nutrition guidelines;

• Provide infants and toddlers with minimum times to be physically active every day; and,

• “Protect” all younger children from “screen time,” including to never permit a baby or toddler “to passively watch a television, computer, mobile phone, or other screen that older children in the same room are watching.”

Public health policy consultant Roberta Friedman, who researched and wrote the Rudd Center report, said she studied what states across the country have done to help reduce childhood obesity. None, she said, have acted on the five recommendations CHDI is proposing. Were Connecticut to do so, it would be a leader in the field.

Several of CHDI’s recommendations dovetail with the bill’s requirements.

Perhaps the most important part of the proposed legislation is requiring physical activity among young schoolchildren, said Rep. Diana Urban, D-North Stonington, co-chairwoman of the Committee on Children.

“I was stunned to learn that 39 elementary schools don’t have recess,” she said.

]]>http://c-hit.org/2016/03/21/fight-childhood-obesity-in-preschools-child-care-centers-new-report-says/feed/0Bed Bugs: Our Creepy, Pervasive And Expensive Problemhttp://c-hit.org/2016/01/10/bed-bugs-our-creepy-pervasive-and-expensive-problem/
http://c-hit.org/2016/01/10/bed-bugs-our-creepy-pervasive-and-expensive-problem/#commentsMon, 11 Jan 2016 02:55:21 +0000http://c-hit.org?p=12960A Norwalk-based exterminator was called to an apartment building in the New Haven area and, entering one unit, he found the walls “dripping with bed bugs.”

The same company, Bliss Pest Control of Connecticut, answered a call from a Greenwich resident who had recently returned from one of his frequent business trips. His family was regularly waking up with bites. The culprit? Bed bugs.

“Bliss gets calls all the time for that very story,” Michael Lawrence, area district manager of Bliss, wrote in an email.

Although the din has dimmed, it doesn’t mean that bed bugs are gone, or even that their numbers have diminished—it means that insect and human have settled into the same relationship we’ve had for thousands of years: opportunistic parasite and frustrated host.

Bed bugs are a potential public health nightmare that can show up almost anywhere. For an individual homeowner, the cost of eradication can be devastating. To cope with an infestation, many people dispose of their furniture and clothing—which may, or may not, be necessary. This can be after trying store-bought insecticides, whose effectiveness can be iffy.

Professional extermination services are more effective, but can be pricey. Angie’s List says, “For a full removal, expect to pay anywhere from $500 to $1,500 … [most exterminators] will charge you a fee for consultation, which includes visiting your home and doing a thorough inspection.”

Resources are spent at every level of government—from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on down—to educate and disseminate bed bug-related information. Managers of almost any kind of facility, even those that have escaped infestation, are well aware of the risk. Jaimie Mantie, executive director of the Windsor Locks Housing Authority, responded in this way to a question about the presence of bed bugs: “Nothing, thank god.”

The apple seed-sized cimex lectularius can be found in every city and town in Connecticut, although nailing down numbers of cases or complaints is impossible, in large part because of their stigma.

They are “wildly underreported,” said Gale Ridge, whom many state housing and health officials inevitably refer to in any conversation about bed bugs. “She is our guru,” said one health official.

An entomologist and researcher at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, Ridge fields thousands of questions a year about many types of bugs. The facility’s website includes Ridge’s fact sheets about cat fleas, cluster flies, Japanese beetles and pepper maggots, among others.

But a good 30 percent of her time is devoted to the ubiquitous bed bug. As chairwoman of the Connecticut Coalition Against Bed Bugs, her mission is getting out the word—via posters, lectures, bill boards, etc.—that they are something that can be controlled and eliminated, if people can only contain their panic.

“Bed bugs have this visceral effect on people. [They give us the] sense that we’re not in control,” Ridge said from her office, where on a counter is a lazy Susan crammed with bell jars filled with dark vegetation and insects.

“I’ve seen perfectly collected people come in [with an insect] and say, ‘I think this is a bed bug!’ And I say, ‘Yup!’ And within 10 minutes, their cortisol levels have gone through the roof, and they’re going through the five stages of grief.”

Myths and Smears

Two things bed bugs do not do: They do not bite—they have a beak through which they suck blood, feeding off of us for three to 15 minute sessions before scurrying off. (They inject an anesthetic, so people don’t feel the “bite.”)

And, they don’t necessarily scurry off into the night. Although they often feed at night, there’s a reason bed bugs have been around since cave man times. They’re adaptive. Do you work the night shift and sleep during the day? Bed bugs can work with that.

And although they’re sky high on the “Ick!” scale, they don’t appear to carry disease.

Tom Stansfield, deputy director of the Torrington Area Health District, referred to bed bugs as “a public health nuisance, though not necessarily a public health threat,” although people can get infections from scratching.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does say, however, that although the physical effects of bed bugs appear to be rare, “Bed bugs may also affect the mental health of people living in infested homes. Reported effects include anxiety [and] insomnia …”

Connecticut

Derek Torrellas Photo.

The common bed bug, cimex lectularius.

Lawrence, district manager for Norwalk-based Ehrlich Pest Control in Connecticut, which bought out Bliss in 2014, said he’d been in the pesticide business for five years before, in 2000, he saw his first bed bug.

A few years ago, he said, “It was just hysteria,” and although it’s calmer now, “that individual pest is 30 percent of our total monthly business.” He paused. “It would be hard to say what’s second.”

Mary Royce, executive director of the New Britain Housing Authority, is frank about the agency’s ongoing battle.

“You can get rid of roaches and mice, [but] it’s very difficult to get rid of bed bugs,” she said. “I don’t think people realize how difficult it is, and it’s very costly. They’re so small, they’ll get into everything and they travel with the person.

“You can end up with millions,” she said.

Betty Evans, assistant housing manager, is in charge of pest control for the authority’s 803 units. Her experience is that once an apartment is infested, “you have to get rid of everything.” The mattresses and bedsprings need to be cut up, bagged and locked up until they can be carted away—in case an unknowing resident decides to help himself to what he thinks is an ordinary, unused mattress.

Hartford’s housing authority pays Connecticut Pest Elimination $12,500 a month to perform an “integrated pest management” program that deals with bed bugs, and all other pests. The program includes quarterly inspections of all units and office areas, daily work orders and follow-up treatments.

With rare specificity, and, perhaps, debatable accuracy, Bridgeport reported 53 bed bug complaints in 2014 and 2015, including three at day care centers, almost certainly the result of home infestations.

Tom Closter, director of environmental services for the Norwalk Health Department, said the city receives at least a complaint a week, versus a few years ago, when it got at least two to three complaints a week. Although people are more aware now, Closter said, “Tenants are still afraid to complain, they’re afraid they’ll be evicted.”

Famously, or infamously, hotels can be major bed bug hangouts, and the online Connecticut bed bug registry—where individuals can anonymously report, and vent about, their experiences—is a testament to the insect’s ubiquity. In 2015 alone, bed bugs were reported in hotels or inns in Farmington, Kent, Waterbury, Manchester, New Haven, Trumbull, Windsor Locks, Cromwell and Glastonbury.

Coping

The state contains a virtual bed-bug-battling army, often unseen, from inspectors to exterminators, from trained dogs to the Department of Consumer Protection’s trade practices division, which regulates and licenses thousands of importers and sellers or bedding and upholstered furniture in Connecticut.

But the bed bug problem, ultimately, comes down to how an individual deals with the insect—human vs. bug.

Ridge, of the agricultural station, sees bed bugs as a window into the country’s growing economic gap, which has “created a demographic here of people who have no resources.

“So when a bed bug shows up, I’ve known so many cases where people just lose everything,” she said. “They spend thousands of dollars, unnecessary dollars, because of misinformation, misguidance.”